Murder under the Microscope 2014 Online Tasks
Primary Quiz 4 Top Predators
Dingo on Fraser Island by Glen Fergus CC BY SA 2.5
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Dingo_Fraser_Is.jpg
We have a love and hate relationship with the top meat-eaters in living communities. At a zoo we
love to see the lions, tigers and marvel at the eagles and sharks. In many cases, humans are the
potential prey so if we saw them in the wild we would be afraid. In other cases they are blamed for
killing our livestock.
The dingo is top predator in many Australian communities. Dingos hunting instincts can be
destructive, particularly of herds of sheep.
The dingo arrived in Australia about 4000 years ago. It was an effective pack hunter and is blamed
for the decline of the Tasmanian tiger on the mainland. At present there is plenty of competition
when it comes to being a predator. Foxes, feral cats and wild dogs are out there in their thousands if
not millions. Some believe these smaller predators do far more damage destroying small native
mammals, reptiles and birds than dingoes. Not only populations of other predators, but also
introduced herbivores such as rabbits are kept in check by dingoes. Studies have shown that the
activities of dingoes, by reducing the populations of feral competitors and rabbits enhance the
survival of many small, endangered marsupials. Kangaroos have bred in numbers that are
unsustainable, so the dingo’s predatory instincts are a cruel and kind way of reducing starvation at
the end of boom times and maintaining vegetation.
A 5614 kilometre long fence, the longest in the world fence was built across Australia in the 1880’s.
It ran from Jimbour in Queensland to the cliffs of the Nullabor Plain. Called the dingo or dog fence,
one of its purposes was to keep dingoes out of the sheep stations in the south eastern corner of
Australia where most dingoes had been already killed. It has been hailed a success, though some
dingoes remain in all areas of mainland Australia and particularly in alpine, woodland, grassland,
desert and coastal habitats.
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Murder under the Microscope 2014 Online Tasks
View the video fo 2013 Eureka prize winner about his research on dingoes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4jNyQ9xPmU&index=3&list=PLEh1S0YpN664wbOOk_HMFX8Fzi
kFZHsp2
Dingo conservation site http://www.dingoconservation.com/dingo-distrib.html
View the video of 2013 Eureka Prize for Science Photography winner
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDTRU1h6dLM&list=PLEh1S0YpN664wbOOk_HMFX8FzikFZHsp2
&index=4
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